I grew up in Peru and by the age of 5 an older cousin had started molesting me. I knew something was wrong. I didn’t understand what was going on but I felt uncomfortable, I was irritable, scared, I cried for everything. I didn’t play well with other children or make friends easily and on top of that my father left Peru to the United States looking for a better life. My mom was left with 5 kids; struggling just to make a way for us. Things were definitely not easy. A few years later we were able to join my dad. I thought we would have a better life. In my mind that was going to be the end of being molested, the end of our family being apart and the beginning of a better financial life for us.

That wasn’t the case- my parents’ marriage was not ok- my dad started cheating on my mom, they started having problems, everything started falling apart. There was no unity in my home, nobody got along. When I went off to college I started drinking, smoking, using drugs and I got into a relationship and ended up pregnant. When I got pregnant I thought that was my chance to start a new life, since my family was so messed up I was going to start a new family. So I thought that my newborn son, his father and me were going to make it but that also didn’t happen. Within 9 months of my son being born we split up. His father started cheating which made me completely distrust men and left me heartbroken.

When my son became a year old he was diagnosed with asthma. Every month we would be in the emergency room and he was receiving very strong medication. His doctor would say that it would help him in the meantime but in the long run if he didn’t improve it could stunt his growth, inhibit his immune system and could also lead to even more problems. So there I was in the hospital every month with my son and the bills were piling up. I couldn’t afford to pay the hospital bills. I had a Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering and I was making minimum wage. I couldn’t afford the medicine and on top of that, while I was in debt and misery I went to the doctor and found out that I had pre-cancerous cells in my system and there was nothing that the doctors could do but monitor it until it became something. So that was my breaking point. I started to contemplate suicide. I thought that I would kill my son and then kill myself because I had no hope, I didn’t see a way out of the misery, broken relationship and just all around terrible life. That’s when my mom invited me to the church. First, I started coming on Fridays, I was taught how to do strong prayers, how to fight back, how to have hope and how to believe in a God who was real and could really change my life. That’s exactly what happened. I started seeing the changes first in my health and then my son’s, he was no longer in and out of the hospital, he could play sports, he didn’t have to depend on medicine to be able to do something as simple as breathing. I was able to get a job within 6 weeks of coming to the church; earning at least 50 % more that I was before. Even with my family there is now unity, where there was no communication, now we can actually just sit at the table and have a meal. We’re able to share with each other. Now we can take vacations without worrying that we’ll be getting into debt, we can just enjoy each other’s company. I am so happy.